Your Imperfection is a Gift

You’re not a perfect Mom. We’ve accepted that. There’s no way you’ll ever be perfect in this life, so we put that away as the goal. Now, what do we do about the “damage” we’re doing to our kids in the meantime? I get that i’m not perfect, fine. But I wish i was cause my mistakes are affecting my kids negatively. Or are they?

Let’s imagine you just “lost it” on your son. Cause you’ve had a rough day. The baby wasn’t sleeping well so we started out at say, 70%, then the girls fighting at breakfast took you down to under 50%, add the messy house to the mix and now you’re running on practically empty. (in the patience tank- you know the feeling) and then whatever son just did was just absolutely the last straw and you dumped your whole full emotional backpack all over him. I mean, you really let him have it. Can you relate? Do you have days like this? (or months going on years?)

Now what? You actually feel a little bit better at first actually because you dumped all that built up emotion out of your system and you were so justified right? You’re life is hard! Trying to deal with all these kids who constantly whine and constantly need to be fed especially with minimal sleep is the real deal. Plus he totally deserved it cause of whatever he just did was really i mean really naughty and i’ve got to teach him that i mean it when i say to not do that!

But then creeps in the guilt. As your higher brain comes back online, and you start thinking more rationally, you know you behaved in a way that is contrary to your goals as a mom and your higher self. So then the guilt starts turning to shame with thoughts of what’s wrong with me? Why can’t i just keep it together? No one else in my block loses their mind like this. I’m terrible mom and a terrible person and on and on, right? Again, you’ve been there.

But NOW What? This is the good part!! This is where the rubber really meets the road. AFTER you “make a mistake”, then what? What do you do then? What do you feel then? What are you thinking then?! That’s where my job comes in. I want to help you manage your mind before, during, and after the imperfections of your life. But especially after! Cause (I’ve said it a million times and I’ll say it a million more times) you can NOT beat yourself up better!!! You can’t! It doesn’t work! If you were at 20% and lost it on your kid, where do you think you’ll go from there with our self-critical chastisement that follows? Just further down. And then when some other kid does something that kids do, it will be even easier to handle that one poorly also!

BUT if you give yourself grace and compassion, you can actually fill your own patience tank back up and respond better. So how do you do that? Well, that is subject for another blog, but for now we will just call it “making repairs”. And this is where the gift of your imperfection comes in (finally! i know, i know, i digress)

You are a human, you will make mistakes. You are raising little humans that will make even more mistakes because they do not even have a fully functioning brain yet! You have big emotions, they have big emotions. We are all just trying our best to figure out what to do with these thoughts and feelings so that we don’t act them all out on everyone around us. And it’s hard! it’s hard for us as adults and it’s even harder for them as kids! So the best gift you can give your kids is not to be a perfect mom, but to be an imperfect human who is learning how to figure it out. Then by your example you can model to them how to manage their emotions and especially what to do after you don’t manage them very well. When you make make mistakes, yes your kids will be affected by that, but imagine how much more affected they will be by experiencing the repair! They will learn how to apologize by being apologized to. They will learn how to comfort those they hurt by being comforted by you. They will learn how to own their mistakes but forgive themselves when they see you doing that. Isn’t that awesome?! Aren’t those the skills we really want our kids to learn? They won’t learn it from a perfect parent.

If they had a perfect mom, imagine what they would think of themselves when they made mistakes? How do you treat yourself and those around you after the mistake. That is best gift you can give your kids. Your example of how to handle being an imperfect human that keeps picking themself up and trying. Again and Again!

If any of this is resonating with you but you need extra support to actually implement it, that’s what i’m here for! Sign up here for a free chat with me on zoom and we will get started embracing your imperfect self and making improvements from there. Your kids will thank me later!!